Wondrich: What You Should Really Drink on Fat Tuesday

If you had any intention of celebrating Mardi Gras this year, hopefully you're already somewhere on Bourbon Street in one of our country's most glorious drinking cities. But if you aren't, and even if you are — and you're not already six Hurricanes in — our drinks correspondent, David Wondrich, has one fail-proof way to show your support: the sazerac. "Do it tonight," he says of the classic New Orleans drink. "In solidarity."

To be sure, the sazerac is a strong drink, but one that you should take the time to enjoy. The most important thing, at least on Fat Tuesday, is to stick to tradition. The basic ingredients are rye whiskey (not bourbon), Peychaud's bitters (a New Orleans brand), a little bit of sugar, an optional dash of Angostura bitters, and the kicker: a rinse of absinthe around the glass. For a long time, when absinthe was outlawed in the United States, it was replaced by an anise-flavored liqueur based in the Big Easy, called Herbsaint. That's fine enough, but as Wondrich says, "no substitute really works," and now that you can safely buy absinthe stateside, there's no reason not to. "The absinthe market seems to have calmed down some, which is probably a good thing," he says. "My favorite one is Vieux Pontarlier, which is a recreation of a traditional style. It's really quite perfect."

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